Daniel Joyce: I wish what we were going to talk about was something a lot more upbeat than the topic that I've chosen, but I think it's really pertinent, given that you are in the midst of a lot of changes at Harvard that also have been changes in a lot of academic research programs. And for those, I can't imagine there are many people out there who aren't aware of all of the things that have been going on between the Trump administration and Harvard. But if you could just bring all of us up to speed on what has transpired with research funding with Harvard, what is the issues that are developing at Harvard with regards to research given the new administration's policies?

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, thank you really for highlighting this topic. I think it is a topic that has hit Harvard institutions particularly hard, but it is really having a ripple effect on the broader research community. So probably just to sort of walk through a timeline of what sort of happened, early on in the administration, not only at Harvard, but really across the United States, there were a number of grants that were found to not be in line with the administration's priorities and they were terminated. These were grants primarily from I think the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other grants. So those were sort of individual grants across the US that were terminated just because they didn't align with sort of the research priorities. What sort of happened with Harvard specifically started to happen, I believe, around February or March when we started to hear that the government was not reimbursing for grants from the National Institutes of Health to Harvard specifically. So over the course of a few months, none of the awards, any award, either Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Dental School, Harvard Medical School, and really across all of the Harvard schools were not being paid. And then at the end of May, we received a mass termination order that all federal grants were terminated at Harvard. So that was sort of the really big, when we had the really big impact on the funding, really across the board. Virtually every federal grant that was based at a Harvard institution was terminated.

Daniel Joyce: So that's much more extreme at Harvard than what we're seeing even here at Vanderbilt, but obviously raises a lot of concerns that could happen to anybody, especially if it can happen to a place like Harvard who is a world-renowned leader in research. How has Harvard responded? What have you been told about how things are changing? How have you seen things change since all that took effect?

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, I mean, I think maybe even just to add the other really concerning set of policies that we're most worried about also is our impact on our international students, postdocs, that community where there are really threats that Harvard will not be allowed to issue visas. Just as an example, at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, 40% of our students are international, so the impact on our international community is enormous. So I think that's the other concerning factor. I am really proud of how our leadership has responded and has come out quite strongly in support of our faculty, our students, our postdocs, and we're in the middle of a large lawsuit against these mass terminations.

Daniel Joyce: I think a lot of us in the research world are watching those lawsuits very closely to see what's happened, because obviously the outcome of that will really impact all of us. Have you, when the funding was cut, how did your research get affected by that, if at all, and how have you noticed some of your colleagues being affected by it?

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, so one of the biggest impacts, it was on another study that I serve as co-PI on, which is the health professionals follow-up study, and this is a cohort of male health professionals that have been followed now close to 40 years. So that funding came with support from the National Cancer Institute. So that entire funding for that cohort study has been terminated. So that for me is the biggest impact. And it's not only my own research, but it's a cohort study that has supported research for cancer researchers at Harvard, really across, we have collaborations across really, the United States, but also in diseases such as cardiovascular disease, dementia. We have actually now, the study started with 50,000 men and 16,000 of them are still alive. They are in their 80s, 90s, some are over 100 years old. They're still actively responding to our questionnaires. So that for us, has been the biggest, or for me, has been the biggest impact of the research terminations, and we're working really diligently to try to find other partnerships to help support that study. The other big area for me personally, has been all of the terminations of our training grants. So for example, T32 training grants which supported not only students, but postdoctoral fellows. I had a postdoctoral fellow who was going to join my group at the end of this year who was going to be supported by a T32 training grant that was terminated. So it's really having just catastrophic effects, I think, on our postdocs, that next generation of researchers. That's for me, one of the biggest concerns also.

Daniel Joyce: Those are super valuable insights. I think it's easy to think about a basic science lab being shut down and what that means, and people may say, "Well, at some point things will get worked out and that'll pick up." But the prospectively gathered health services, research, epidemiology research, you can't ever pick that up again, and you're losing hundreds of years of progress in that. So that's really, really good to, or not good to hear, but important to hear is how this is affecting things on the health services side of things. A lot of people are concerned that these policies are going to discourage young researchers, and you've already sort of touched on how that might happen in their training programs if they're not having funding, they're not going to have the ability to even start that career. Can you talk about some other ways in which you think even, let's say four years from now, everything changes and it goes back to being normal, how could this four years of what we're currently experiencing impact the future of young scientists?

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, I'm incredibly concerned because as you mentioned, although Harvard is bearing an exceptional brunt of the terminations, it's really having a ripple effect across research institutions across the United States. I think we're going to lose a generation, that's what my big concern is, of scientists who, let's say are currently in a PhD program and don't see a path forward in academic research. And so what is their future? There are a number of graduate programs that had to rescind offers for graduate students because their training grants were terminated. So that whole pipeline and then, so you have the graduate students having offers rescinded. You have postdoctoral fellows concerned about staying in academia, and then we have our assistant professors whose grant funding has been terminated and where are they going to go? So this huge generation of scientists are really at risk. So that's one thing. The other concern is, for example, the large cuts to the National Institutes of Health budget and the amount of money that's going to be available is going to be much, much more competitive. Again, it's going to really impact our early career investigators, I think, the most. So I think that's really concerning as well. I think also, just to add, I've seen a lot of data showing that a $1 investment of the National Institutes of Health is a more than $3 return on investment. So by investing in science in the United States, the return on that investment is enormous. So the fact that the budget is being cut substantially is just going to have this enormous ripple effect on the generation. So even if things do change in four years, I think we're going to see these effects for decades.

Daniel Joyce: So yeah, you raise another interesting point that funding is harder to come by because there's less of it, especially coming from the government. You have a unique position with the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Have you noticed impact from this in that more charitable private funding organization?

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, I think funding from the Prostate Cancer Foundation has been an incredible resource for me over the years and for my trainees as well and it's more critical now than ever. And I think we already, I have a part-time position with the American Cancer Society, and I know I've heard from them the number of applications that have been submitted most recently has increased enormously. And I think we're going to see more and more people turning to non-federal funding for their research. So I think that the foundations like the Prostate Cancer Foundation are so vital, and so thinking about ways in which we can help increase opportunities for funding by foundations is going to be really an important lifeline as we navigate these really challenging times.

Daniel Joyce: So that leads me perfectly into my next question, which is it's really sitting, watching this happen is really a powerless feeling for a lot of us. We feel like, man, we just have to cross our fingers and hope that the research we're doing is going to continue. What should we do? How can we get involved? How can we make a meaningful impact on what's happening?

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, I think it's such a great question. I know at the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Michael Milken during his talk at the Annual Scientific Retreat, talks a lot about the March on Washington, the March for Cancer research that he really helped to lead. I think that's what we should be doing in a big way as a cancer research community, thinking about the voices that we have, reaching out to our senators and representatives, talking to them about the importance of research. I think that's one avenue that we can take. I think another area, what has been amazing for me to see among my colleagues at Harvard is really people are coming together in ways that we would not necessarily have. And for example, I've started a new collaboration with a colleague who's involved in healthy aging. So it has nothing to do with cancer research, but we've come together to think about ways of partnering creatively and identifying potentially new sources of funding. That's going to take some time, but I think while it does feel overwhelming, I think we have to take this as a rally for action, and our voices are much, much stronger together and so I think that's my thought on that.

Daniel Joyce: Yeah, I think it's really helpful to hear that. I think if there's ever a time to get involved on the Hill and be aware of what's going on, now is that time. I think it's also important I found, even just in our daily lives of talking, most of us in the research community understand how this is impacting areas that have nothing to do with the impetus for why they were put in place. And I think it's important to keep talking to all the people around us too, our family members, our friends, about how a reaction to the Israeli-Palestine conflict has rippled into epidemiology, prostate cancer research that really has nothing to do with any of the issues that the administration has used to justify what's happening. And it's a shame and I think us being aware of that and really highlighting stories like your work and how it's getting affected and what those real losses are to our field is going to be really important.

Lorelei Mucci: Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely important. I think that you're right. Talking to our family members, our friends, letting them know about, I mean, this is going to have a huge impact on the health of all of us. When you're not investing in cancer research, for example, what about the next opportunity for prevention, the next new therapeutic target, understanding things like the impact of cancer care on financial health, quality of life, etc. And so these changes are, it's not just about supporting scientists and the work they do. These are things that are going to translate down the road, hopefully, to really improving health. Without investment of federal dollars, that's at risk as well. So talking to our family members and friends is really important.

Daniel Joyce: Well, Lorelei, I can't thank you enough for taking the time. Really, really important topic that you are really in the midst of as a lot of us are and your insights and your perspective are really, really valuable. So I can't thank you enough.

Lorelei Mucci: I can't thank you enough also for being interested in this topic and it was really a pleasure to talk today.